Rococo "Bergère" hats - the basics

Ikea currently providing an ample support of round place mats made from natural fibres, I have also taken up rococo hatting again. Getting the right shape for one of those flat Bergère-style hats out of a round place mat is easy, you treat the piece with steam or hot water at the centre and the part that's going to be the back, and shape it over or between whatever is at hand and gets you the desired shape.


The basic shape

Moisten the centre of the place mat thoroughly either with steam or with a spray bottle (spray both sides thoroughly) and press it between a round lid and a jar - at least that's what I'm using and it works perfectly. I used to shape the centre over a little glass bowl but the result was nice but not completely satisfactory. The lid of a round metal noodle jar (diametre 10.5 cm, depth 2.5 cm) and a matching honey glass gives perfect results. Put the moistened part over the lid and gently press it in with the jar to get an even crown with relatively straight sides. Let set for an hour or so and gently remove to dry thoroughly (I put mine on the heating). This works for the Ikea straw placemats. Paper placemats are a bit different to shape, as the material won't stretch that much. The brim will inevitably turn wavy due to excess material which you put to one side and use for the turned-up back of the hat.

Dome-shaped crown with a glass bowl as model.

 The procedure works well with any kind of natural fibres, be it paper, straw, reed, or other grassy stuff. The hat will keep its shape pretty well, provided it doesn't get too wet.

I used to shape the turned-up back of the brim also with water, but as it needs wire framing anyway I left this away and just shape it after the wire has been put in along the brim.


Wiring the brim

How to put wire along the edge of your hat depends on which material the place mat consists of. If you have a woven paper mat you will have to line the hat, sew the wire into the edge of the lining, and add the wired lining to the hat. That's because the paper mats have nowhere to hide the wire, whereas you can conveniently put it between the woven layers of Ikea's normal straw place mat. To facilitate this, bend a little o into the end of the wire (.6 mm steel works nicely), thread a very thick, blunt needle with sturdy thread and attach the thread to the steel. You can now work your way around the brim from straw pleat to straw pleat without damaging anything, gently pulling on the string regularly to ease the wire in. It gets a little fiddly towards the end because pulling wire 360° around the hat doesn't work without some gentle pushing and you'd need three hands, but it's by far the most convenient method I've found.

Lining and hat

Wired lining, ready to be sewn into the hat.

The decoration

When you decorate the hats I strongly advise NOT using hot glue. Everything once glued on can't be taken off without damage to the hat or the decoration. Sew stuff on or, in very exceptional cases, use normal household glue to keep stuff in place. I usually glue on the lace around the brim as I want absolutely no stitches to be seen on the reverse side and it makes no difference to how the lace behaves afterwards. I sew all the ruches on by hand with invisible stitches. If you have to line the hat, you can forget about the invisible stitches, they won't be seen through the lining. But otherwise you don't want stitches to show on the reverse side. Push the needle down through trim and straw at an angle, aiming to slide it a few millimetres or so between the two layers of pleated straw to the reverse. Going up from the reverse, use the same hole where your needle just came out to push it in again, at an angle, back up. Thus you'll be sewing the trim to one layer of straw while the visible layer remains more or less intact. It's fiddly, but worth it!

Invisible stitching, nothing visible from the hat band on the upper side.

I usually put lace around the brim, then ruching on the upper side and some coverage on the reverse, like simpler ruches or braid or something. It covers all mistakes you may have made when inserting the wire and is just so much nicer to look at. The turned-up brim at the back of most of my models requires the "below" to be just as nice and neat as the "above", even without lining.

Pomander

As I found some nice ball pendants that can be used for making pomanders, I decided I needed one. Or more. The first one sold quickly at the historic market, so quickly that only a blurry picture could be found because I forgot to take a decent one. It's artificial pearls, four joined on a wire, and a dark red one with silver ornaments between the white pieces. They should be long enough to go round the waist, the scented ball being slightly below your knees. The top end finishes with a hook to close around the waist with one of the joints between the pearl segments so it can easily be adjusted.

The second pomander in blue and gold, commissioned work.

A third one is made with black and silver filigree pearls between the white segments, ending in a cross-shaped pomander pendant.

The fourth one (yes, it becomes slightly addictive...) is with red pearls again, this time with golden ornaments and a golden scent ball, a similar one in blue and gold, and no end in sight, just diversification, growing more and more elaborate with experience and better sources for pearls and ornaments! One needs a matching pomander for each renaissance gown, after all.

How to make one yourself: You'll need white pearls as basis, .8 mm wire (brass or silver-plated; don't use iron wire, it's going to put on rust eventually), a ball pendant for the lower end and a matching hook (can also be self-made from stronger wire) for the closure. String three or four white pearls for the segments and coloured individual pearls with ornaments for the decorative sections, and join them in a nice, regular pattern.

The latest one with bigger pink beads and rhinestone-bling on the pomander - the lighting was bad, the hour was late, new pic to come... I love the filigree closing hook of this one!

If you're not that much into DIY or patience: I'm selling some of these girdles on Etsy ;)

Teddy bear blanket

A friend of mine expecting her first child, I decided now was the time to try a pattern I had seen on the internet. And as time is always short when I start doing something, I couldn't bother ordering said pattern but quickly re-invented it. You'll find the original here and the price is really fair for a complete pattern plus how-to: teddy bear blanket pattern on etsy. Definitely going to order the sheep-blanket-pattern for the next baby project!

The complete blanket counts eight by nine squares to have all three tones of turquis evenly in the pattern; yes, I can be very orderly if I want to!

The squares were connected by slip stitch rows and then ironed flat. Make sure to iron the ears individually so they lie flat, then iron the complete blanket from the back to flatten it thoroughly.

The eyes are wooden beads, two of them stringed before you start the teddy face and then crocheted in so they don't stand the faintest chance of ever coming off.

And the little man seemed very pleased, slumbering under his cosy teddy bedding! ^^

Hat decoration...

...or: How to turn something incredibly horrible into something more credibly horrible :D

Having a pencheant for fleur de lys, I just had to buy this masterpiece of glittery madness (who the hell invented sticky glitter?!), plucked off the silly ribbon and the plastic rhinestones, scratched and sanded the glitterglue off, changed the position of the metal ornaments, and lo!, it can easily serve as hat decoration now - though I'll more probably use it for a rococo tricorn than for a baroque cavalier hat.

Glittery madness before

De-glittered ornament after

Tiny stuff

This is what I do when I get along too well with my projects and decide I can waste some time on doing random stuff. While sorting through some drawers my mum found this wee rubber doll from the 1960s and brought it to me for some clothing. As it's a boy (even though the details are missing) he got red woollen trousers and a white shirt, mostly hand-sewn because four centimetre trousers and a three centimetre shirt are simply too small for a sewing machine :D

Petit four dress

Yes, that's what it looks like, all pink :D I once bought a justaucorps from a theatre sale and at last found matching pink fabric for a skirt. After adjusting the justaucorps to my measurements, I started with the skirt, to be worn over my smallest set of paniers.

The justaucorps was too wide around the waist (which could be helped easily by taking in the side and back seams) while the sleeves were too short - which took a bit more effort. I had to detach the cuffs as well as the lace cuffs which I sewed to the very edge of the sleeve, then came the pink cuff that was not, as before, sewn edge to edge but three centimetres further down to give additional length.

The skirt is two fabric widths, closing at one of the side seams, with pocket slits. Measuring the seamline is tedious when you have a curved hem to be worn over paniers. I usually put the skirt on, mark floor length at the front and on one side, and copy it to the other sides, cropping a little for the front and adding a little for the back side. Much to my satisfaction I found an ample amount of matching satin ribbon in my collection but, not content with three rows of ribbon around the hem, I decided to try some simple self-fabric-trimming. And after using the very last bit for the waistband I can proudly say that I used up every inch of this fabric!
From the cutoff I cut 2 centimetre wide strips, using pinking scissors to get the typical pinked edge, which I sewed together and ruffled slightly (not too much or it will curl up). These, alternating with the satin ribbon, decorate the hem.

While rummaging through my collection of trims and ribbons I also found a short piece of a matching one that I decided to turn into a neck ruff / choker. Actually it's a length of gift ribbon, 100% polyester and the centre is some kind of translucent plastic, but this part is covered by a row of lace anyway and won't be seen. I box-pleated almost the whole length, the rest was folded into a bow to hide the hook and eye closure.

At least of this one I have a decent picture now, riding side-saddle at an 18th/19th century event. What's still missing in this picture is the little tricorn. I have a length of ribbon left that was too short for the hem, plus some lace, satin roses and I'm sure I can get my hands on some matching ostrich feathers. The basis of the hat is a child's straw hat that has been put into tricorn shape by the same method I use for the bergère hats, hot water/steam and letting cool/dry in the desired shape. The straw hat was then covered with matching satin (remember to add an inner layer of fabric or else the woven straw texture will show through the satin) and decorated. And as I had two shades of matching pink, two shades of matching decoration and a source for cheap straw hats, I made two little tricorns. Just because.

Celtic outfit with interchangeable outer garments

One of the liveroleplay-settings I play in is celtic, and I decided that now at last my character - actually a completely unpretentious and practically-minded surgeon - needs some new clothes instead of the worn and sack-like outfit she has. Plus I need to get rid of fabric I bought for projects I haven't started in the past seven years. Now's the time!

The léine, the dress I use as the first layer, is actually very simple (which is authentic) and made from four rectangles, two for front and back, two folded for the sleeves. For vanity's sake I might make another princess cut version, which is completely unauthentic but looks more shapely. The fabric is a relatively light blue cotton (no, not period) that matches the colour of all three possible peplos.

The peplos is the outer garment, worn over the léine. Same as the greek counterpart, the top is folded over, pinned over the shoulders, and either sewn close along the sides or left open and just belted. Two are light cotton tartan weave, the third is a heavier and simple blue and white tartan. You will inevitably get a bateau neckline unless you pin the shoulder parts to the léine to fix them in place. If you want to have a lower neckline at the front, the trick is to either make the front part a tad shorter than the back part, or adjust via the folded part.
 

As all of this is soooo simple and will be done so quickly I found that having machine-sewn hems visible where the peplos is folded over, I went for hand-sewn hems, at least for the two lighter fabrics. Slowly I'm beginning to realize that perfectionism might be one of the reasons for never getting anything done...

Yellow renaissance dress

A.k.a. "picknick dress", as I think the colour fits green meadows and joyful picknicking. Years ago I made a landsknecht-outfit for my former boyfriend and, as always, bought more fabric than I needed. Even made a tablecloth from the yellow jacquard. Still enough left for a dress. The fabric has a woven pattern of - guess what! - marguerites that I followed with the embroidery. I set out with eight colours and two shades of green in my mind, using up thread I had on stock and just buying the missing material. Six shops and two changes of colour ideas later I had finally made up my mind what to use. It's amazing how much the pink upset the colour palette before I exchanged it for a pale yellow!

The embroidering is perfect work for being on the train or bus, and luckily last summer took me here and there and back again often enough to finish a sleeve and a half. The rest was done watching "Penny Dreadful", figuring that the only dreadful thing in this series is the horrid wearout when it comes to hotties. All 27 episodes left me with an almost fully embroidered renaissance gown and the firm decision to copy umpteen nice dresses from Vanessa's and Angélique's wardrobe for my victorian collection. Needless to say that the picknick came with the dress being only embroidered but not sewn, so I fear I'll have to organise yet another baroque picknick. Preferably with a different picknick blanket that's not made from the same fabric as my dress...

The gown follows my usual bodice pattern, only this time with side seams to have the woven pattern follow the neckline so as to be able to embroider it. It's embroidered heavily at the front as well as along the neckline.

The sleeves are two-part each, joined with (hand-made) strings along the front and back of the arm, one embroidered top and one plain bottom part.

The skirt has a seam circumfence of close to five metres but only sports a couple of scattered marguerites and leaves. I'm not THAT mad, after all!

Baroque vine dress

This year's ball motto is "Autumn", so another new dress is absolutely necessary ;) The actual idea behind it is an eccentric mid-1800s-dress that I chose because of the vine decoration:

The decoration will bearranged differently, to give it a more baroque impression, like in this drawing from Burnacini: the grapes and leaves are arranged around the slimmest parts of the costume only.

And yes, this is the dress that had me on the search for glass grapes, or something the like. No point in sticking plastic grapes on a baroque gown, it would look like I was carrying the table decoration on my shoulders :D So these are the grapes that are going on the dress, entirely handmade, to be found at http://godivascreativechaos.blogspot.com/2017/07/artificial-glass-grapes.html